ASRock Z77 Extreme6 Review: Legacy Bites Back
by Ian Cutress on July 13, 2012 2:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- ASRock
- Z77
Test Setup
| Processor |
Intel Core i7-3770K ES 4 Cores, 8 Threads, 3.5 GHz (3.9 GHz Turbo) |
| Motherboards |
ASRock Z77 Extreme4 ASUS P8Z77-V Pro Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H MSI Z77A-GD65 ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe ASRock Fatal1ty Z77 Professional Gigabyte GA-Z77MX-UD3H ASRock Z77 Extreme6 |
| Cooling | Intel All-in-One Liquid Cooler |
| Power Supply | OCZ 1250W Gold ZX Series |
| Memory |
GSkill RipjawsZ 4x4 GB DDR3-2400 9-11-11 Kit GSkill TridentX 2x4 GB DDR3-2666 11-13-13 Kit |
| Memory Settings | XMP (2400 9-11-11) |
| Video Cards |
ASUS HD7970 3GB ECS GTX 580 1536MB |
| Video Drivers |
Catalyst 12.3 NVIDIA Drivers 296.10 WHQL |
| Hard Drive | Micron RealSSD C300 256GB |
| Optical Drive | LG GH22NS50 |
| Case | Open Test Bed - CoolerMaster Lab V1.0 |
| Operating System | Windows 7 64-bit |
| SATA Testing | Micron RealSSD C300 256GB |
| USB 2/3 Testing | OCZ Vertex 3 240GB with SATA->USB Adaptor |
Power Consumption
Power consumption was tested on the system as a whole with a wall meter connected to the OCZ 1250W power supply, while in a dual 7970 GPU configuration. This power supply is Gold rated, and as I am in the UK on a 230-240 V supply, leads to ~75% efficiency > 50W, and 90%+ efficiency at 250W, which is suitable for both idle and multi-GPU loading. This method of power reading allows us to compare the power management of the UEFI and the board to supply components with power under load, and includes typical PSU losses due to efficiency. These are the real world values that consumers may expect from a typical system (minus the monitor) using this motherboard.
The Z77 Extreme6 does not seem to pull anything special out of the bag for power delivery, matching some of the more high performance models from ASUS and Gigabyte.
POST Time
Different motherboards have different POST sequences before an operating system is initialized. A lot of this is dependent on the board itself, and POST boot time is determined by the controllers on board (and the sequence of how those extras are organized). As part of our testing, we are now going to look at the POST Boot Time - this is the time from pressing the ON button on the computer to when Windows starts loading. (We discount Windows loading as it is highly variable given Windows specific features.) These results are subject to human error, so please allow +/- 1 second in these results.
ASRock always does quite well on boot timings, taking all the top spots. It is assumed that ASRock has the least amount of 'check and verification' tools compared to their competitors, which can increase boot time.
Overclocks
Here at AnandTech we want to provide quick and easy ways to determine if a board is good for you (with in-depth analysis of course). So here is a quick round up of our overclocking results. Overclocks are tested for stability with PovRay and OCCT - while these may not be the most strenuous of stability tests, it does offer a quick check for memory errors under high load (and also balances testing time with getting the next board on for review!).
|
CPU Speed (MHz) |
Voltage (Volts) |
PovRay Peak Temp (ºC) |
OCCT Peak Temp (ºC) |
Notes | |
|
ASRock Fatal1ty Z77 Professional |
4700 | 1.200 | 89 | 89 | PLL Overvoltage enabled |
|
ASRock Z77 Extreme4 |
4700 | 1.175 | 86 | 86 | LLC Level 1 |
|
ASRock Z77 Extreme6 |
4700 | 1.175 | 81 | 82 | LLC Level 1 |
|
ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe |
4700 | 1.225 | 89 | 84 | PLL Overvoltage enabled |
|
ASUS P8Z77-V Pro |
4700 | 1.200 | 83 | 86 | PLL Overvoltage enabled |
|
Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H |
4700 | 1.200 | 82 | 86 | LLC Extreme |
|
Gigabyte Z77MX-D3H |
4700 | 1.200 | 80 | 84 | LLC Extreme |
|
MSI Z77A-GD65 |
4700 | 1.250 | 90 | - | PLL Overvoltage enabled |
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35 Comments
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Assimilator87 - Friday, July 13, 2012 - link
I feel like for the majority of people IDE is way more useful than floppy. If ASRock is gonna put one on the board, they may as well include both. I still have a handful of IDE drives laying around, which is useful for troubleshooting, or for use in a secondary rig.hsew - Friday, July 13, 2012 - link
If I really wanted a floppy drive I would buy an external USB one for 20 USD. Seems pointless to put it on a motherboard.Johnmcl7 - Friday, July 13, 2012 - link
Agreed, I still need to use floppy disks at work and it's no problem with new machines as a USB floppy disk drive appears to work as well as an internal drive as I've had no issues with it. Even then I don't really get this board, I could certainly see making a legacy Z77 board with a couple of serial ports, PS/2 ports, PCI and IDE ports with the rest of the board very basic would be handy for legacy enterprise use but this board is nothing like that, it seems a fairly fancy motherboard with a floppy connector strangely added.An IDE port which be handy as there are times I'm still working with IDE drives and keep some of the older P4 machines which had both sata and ide connectors for that use.
Havor - Monday, July 16, 2012 - link
Agree have not used a floppy for at least 5 years, and have not build one in my PCs for even longer, still have a USB floppy, that i used literly just once, and properly never again.Just keeping it to show the grand kids in +20y or so, "look that's what gramps use to use to install DOS and Win 3.1!"
taltamir - Saturday, July 14, 2012 - link
It is an issue of compatibility. Floppies are needed for ancient software you cannot replace for some reason, and such software typically does not play well with USB floppy drives.Notmyusualid - Saturday, July 14, 2012 - link
Absolutely agree.cknobman - Friday, July 13, 2012 - link
Just built my new gaming rig using this board which I picked up from the Egg for less than $160.I am happy with the board layout as it was easy to connect all my devices.
The BIOS was super easy to navigate and understand and my internet BIOS update worked which was pretty cool being able to update BIOS like that.
The build has only been running about 2 weeks and I am just running everything stock now making sure all components are stable. In another week or two I will try out overclocking.
I did have problems with the board recognizing my RAM. I put 16GB of cheap Team Xtreem Dark Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 in the board and it kept thinking it was 1333. I had to go in and force the board to think the RAM was 1600.
So far I get an occasional BSOD and it is either related to my RAM or my SSD (OCZ, I should have known better).
C'DaleRider - Friday, July 13, 2012 - link
"I did have problems with the board recognizing my RAM. I put 16GB of cheap Team Xtreem Dark Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 in the board and it kept thinking it was 1333. I had to go in and force the board to think the RAM was 1600."Dude, that's not a problem, that's exactly the way memory is supposed to work. The JEDEC standards call for 1333 as a/the default setting when first installing memory so it'll work in any motherboard, regardless of rated speed.
Then, to achieve the rated speed spec of the memory, one HAS to enter the BIOS and set it. The motherboard won't do that natively.
cknobman - Friday, July 13, 2012 - link
Ok thanks for the clarification!After reading this review I am now a little bummed about the middle/lower performance of this board compared to its competitors.
In all reality such a small difference in performance though is not my primary concern.
I think I will see much more real world benefit from the XFast USB included with this board as it seems to make a substantial impact and I do quite a lot of USB transfers (pictures, video, files).
Also nice to see this board is a good overclocker.
Samus - Friday, July 13, 2012 - link
I still wouldn't pass over the OCZ SSD as a problem. Both of mine eventually failed causing BSOD's. My Agility II didn't even last two weeks before disappearing into never-ever-land, never detected again, that is.Stick with Intel, Crucial or some other well known memory manufacture. Plextor is up and coming, too, but I still think if one is to go Sandforce, Intel 330 or 520 is your best bet.